The former head of the Mossad Meir Dagan and the former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi refused this order. Why were they not imprisoned? because Netanyahu and Barak were acting illegally. They had issued the order, without consulting the security cabinet. This is a decision to be made by the security cabinet and not just the Prime Minister and Defence Minister. Thats why. Otherwise the head of Israel armed forces have no right to refuse the order of the Israeli public’s democratically elected representatives. If they do so, they would be breaking the law.

At this year’s Jerusalem Post conference, Caroline Glick, the hard-line conservative editor of the Jerusalem Post attacked Dagan and Ashkenazi for not attacking Iran, and for not listening to Netanyahu’s illegal orders. And she was applauded by the participants!

Watch her remarks and Meir Dagan’s reaction. #Classic. This is the same conference in which Obama’s Secretary of Treasury was booed.

In the MSNBC interview, however, he made a significant concession, saying Israel could tolerate a limited uranium enrichment capacity for Iran, although with a number lower than the 6,500 reported to be part of an emerging deal.

“A smaller number is something Israel and its Arab neighbors wouldn’t love but could live with,” he said.

By the look of things, not only Netanyahu’s Congress speech failed to convince any Congressmen to change their mind regarding the Iran deal, but as it turns out the only person who seems to have changed their stance towards the Iran negotiations since then is Prime Minister Netanyahu himself.

Welcome to the world of Realpolitik Mr Netanyahu. No one wants the Iranian regime to have nuclear weapons. But your zero enrichment demand was so unrealistic that it hurt Israel’s credibility.

And no, limited enrichment capacity under tough inspections will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons as soon as it chooses. Robert Einhorn, one of the world’s foremost experts in this subject explains succinctly why in this op-ed.

According to the Lebanon based Daily Star newspaper, today, an Israeli attack against a number of vehicles on the Syrian side of the Golan heights killed 9 people. Among them were senior members of Hezbollah and an Iranian field commander.

Why would Israel undertake such an operation? And why now?

There are a number of possibilities:

1 – It appears that in his recent interview on the 15th of January, Hezbollah Chief Nasrallah set a red line for Israel. He stated:

“The repeated bombings that struck several targets in Syria are a major violation, and we consider that any strike against Syria is a strike against the whole of the resistance axis, not just against Syria,” he told the Beirut-based Arab news television.

The “axis of resistance” which he mentioned is made up of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

In other words, any attack against Syria will now be considered as an attack against Hezbollah and Iran, as well as Syria.

This declaration would be considered as a new red line, for Israel.

When it comes to Syria, Israeli security officials seem to have an allergic reaction to red lines being drawn for Israel.

2 – We are getting close to elections in Israel. There is the possibility that Netanyahu may lose. At the beginning a Likud lead government headed by Netanyahu looked certain. By as time has passed, Netanyahu’s challenger Isaac Herzog from the Labour party has started to catch up.

3- In his interview with i24 news tonight, Amir Oren of Haaretz newspaper stated that we are getting close to the anniversary of the assassination of former Hezbollah commander Imad Mighniye who was killed on the 12 of February 2008. Hezbollah may have been planning to retaliate, and Israel may have decided to take the initiative.

4 – Perhaps Hezbollah was planning to place some of its Iran made Fatah 110 missiles and its other new missiles which Nasrallah bragged about in his recent interview on Israel’s border with the Syrian side of the Golan heights.

These are all possibilities. Lets not jump to conclusions. We just finished a war in Gaza based on the assumption of some people in Israel that the Hamas central command in Gaza had ordered the kidnapping and killing of 3 Israeli teenagers. It turns out that it had not.

Tonight I shared a panel with the Iranian regime’s PressTV channel correspondent in Israel. The panel was hosted by the Tel Aviv based I24 news.

Hamad Awidat who reports for the Iranian channel belongs to the Druze minority in Israel. He lives on the Golan Heights. I have my views regarding PressTV as an organization. Its nothing against Hamad as a person. He is a very nice guy and I enjoyed exchanging opinion with him. I look forward to many more and wish him the best.

And as usual I24 news channel proved yet again why they are a trendsetter in this country. They host people from all political views and groups. In fact they are one of the few, if not the only Israel based TV station to interview Hamas spokespersons, direct from Gaza. I know because I was in the studio and saw it live.

I must say that I found tonight’s experience quite strange. The Iranian regime calls for the destruction of Israel and refuses to compete with Israel in international sporting events, yet it sees no problem in having a reporter inside Israel. And there I was, sharing a panel with him, in Yafo port, just outside of Tel Aviv.

Would Iran allow an Israeli channel on its soil? Think again. It does not even allow BBC Persian to have an office. This is in addition to the fact that the Washington Post correspondent in Iran Jason Rezaian was recently arrested for unknown reasons.

Our free press in Israel is something to be tremendously proud of.

Here is an interesting report which Hamad prepared, not for PressTV. Its a message of support and love from Israel, from an Iranian in Israel who also seems to be leading a Christian Zionist group.

What is interesting is that the government of Israel has refused to comment on this issue.

Why?

We can assume that this could be due to (at least) three reasons:

The UAV was in fact Israeli, or

The UAV had nothing to do with Israel. But by staying silent the government of Israel wants to create the perception in Iran that Israel is closely watching the Iranian nuclear program. As senior Haaretz correspondent Amir Oren stated on the i24 news channel last night, “as long as the Iranians believe they are being watched and whatever they do is transparent, this is good for Israel”. This theory is helped by the fact that the UAV news was headlines news in numerous Iranian news outlets today.

The UAV belonged to another country and its not Israel’s place or business to comment on the military activities of other countries.